The large number of potential applications for robotic odor source localization has motivated the development of a variety of plume tracking algorithms, the majority of which work in restricted two-dimensional scenarios.

Robotic chemical plume tracing is a growing area of research, with envisioned real-world applications including pollution tracking, search and rescue, and ecosystem identification. However, following a chemical signal in the water is not an easy task due to the nature of chemical transport and to limitations in sensing and communication.

Taking distributed robotic system research from simulation to the real world often requires the use of small robots that can be deployed and managed in large numbers. This has led to the development of a multitude of these devices, deployed in the thousands by researchers worldwide.

Robotic odor source localization is a promising tool with numerous applications in safety, search and rescue, and environmental science. In this paper, we present an algorithm for odor source localization using multiple cooperating robots equipped with chemical sensors.

Odor plume tracing is a challenging robotics application, made difficult by the combination of the patchy characteristics of odor distribution and the slow response of the available sensors. This work proposes a graph-based formation control algorithm to coordinate a group of small robots equipped with odor sensors, with the goal of tracing an odor plume to its source.

There is considerable worldwide interest in the use of groups of autonomous marine vehicles to carry our challenging mission scenarios, of which marine habitat mapping of complex, non-structured environments is a representative example.

The use of groups of autonomous marine vehicles has enormous potential in numerous marine applications, perhaps the most relevant of which is the surveying and exploration of the oceans, still widely unknown and misunderstood.